💯 STORY CHALLENGE (24/100)
Sacrifices on the Altar of Science, Chapter 3 — Metamorphosis
After Marc becomes the unwilling victim of one of his girlfriend’s weird experiments, his body is going through tremendous and painful changes.
Suppose you haven’t read my “Sacrifices on the Altar of Science” series before. In that case, you might also want to read the first story or the previous episode.
Watching the sunset from Maddy’s penthouse had always been such a delight to Marc. The reds, oranges and yellows of the sun setting behind the buildings created a beautiful silhouette of the skyline. As if answering a call, the lights on the dark buildings seemed eager to match the warm colours of dusk.
He had always loved this sight. It reminded him of two things. There was light and darkness to everything in life, and there was always hope. Marc had often looked at Maddy, the true love of his life, in the same way. She had that dark side, frequently prioritising her science over morals, but he’d always seen her bright-shining and warm side.
Since Marc awoke in a mess this afternoon, nothing seemed as it was before. He looked at the disgusting mixture of the blood, skin and hair he’d lost while asleep. His bed looked like it was stolen from a horror movie set.
When he looked out of the vast window, Marc couldn’t discern the colours anymore. Everything seemed to radiate now. The buildings had a light, cold blue shine, while the people walking on the streets had become little red and orange glowing blobs.
Something else was different; all smells had become incredibly intensive. Marc could even smell the ink of the signatures on his dad’s old Dodgers pennant, although the thing was framed in glass, hanging on a wall eight metres away from him.
What felt even odder was that electrical humming in the air. Like a soft stream of air, it seemed to pass over Marc’s body, continuously flowing from the bathroom behind him toward the huge window and the skyline, roughly along a South-North axis.
“Maddy, what have you done to me?” he whispered.
Marc’s inability to perceive the lights of the night sky wasn’t the only change. His view of Maddy, that beautiful and brilliant woman he loved, had undergone tremendous change. Looking at his painful, reddened skin, he wondered if darkness had finally taken her over.
As if he’d summoned her with his mind, he heard footsteps in the hallway outside. That should have been impossible, considering the thick carpet and thicker walls muffling all sounds. But as with his vision, his hearing had sharpened extraordinarily.
“What have you done to me, Madeline?” he asked even before she had wholly entered the room.
Using her full name for the first time seemed to have startled her. He could determine that by listening to her heartbeat.
“Don’t worry, babe. It was a bit of a failed test,” she said calmly.
God, he loved that voice, but how could she dare to say that. Loss of hair and blood, his skin reddened and burnt from the inside, he had gone through hell, and she talked as if he had failed his driving test.
“Don’t call me that!” he shouted.
The hot blood rushing through his body caused him physical pain, and Marc’s heart beat wildly like the drums of the Blue Man Group. Whatever Maddy had done, he wasn’t through with it yet.
“You are not a failed test ….” she answered, trying to comfort him.
“I meant,” he said sharply, turning toward her, “do not call me babe!”
Maddy’s pained expression suggested his words felt like physical pain to her. His heart sank when Marc saw her shoulders drop. Her head bowed toward the ground, giving her the look of a child that just realised hurting people could cost her friends.
Then, Maddy’s expression changed again. When she looked up, her gaze was stern, and she threw a small sack of sugar at Marc’s feet with a loud thump. He looked at her, puzzled.
“The available data shows that test subjects experience a hugely increased desire for sugar,” Maddy explained.
Marc’s look changed from a puzzled to a goofy appearance when his jaw dropped as if it wanted to kiss the floor.
“Additionally,” Maddy said with a voice simultaneously sad and scary, “sugar increases the survival chances of test subjects, so I brought the biggest bag I could find.”
“Maddy,” he said, a wheezing sound coming from his chest, “what have you done, my love?”
The last thing Marc saw was the tears running down Maddy’s face. Then, the burning sensation became so unbearable he collapsed and screamed in agony. His body segregated thick ichor that cooled his skin before hardening into a tough cocoon, signalling a new phase of his metamorphosis.
© Jay C Wells, 2022
💯 Story Challenge (24/100)
I am going through a metamorphosis of my own, realising my writing dream. Why don’t you support that journey by reading my other fictional tales, subscribing to my email list or joining Medium with my referral link?
I love Christine Graves’ writing prompts so much that I decided to merge two ideas from her latest prompt in this story. Thus, I included a description of “lights in the night sky” and three pieces, “a failed test, a Dodgers pennant, a sack of sugar”.
Are you interested in the 💯 Story Challenge? Check this story by Zane Dickens in Microcosm to learn more.
Like always, I finish by leading you to a personal pick from the 💯 Story Challenge: “Distracted Mommy” by Corin Buffington. I hope she will be writing more about this intriguing character.